Is there any side effect I do not see by doing this ?
class App extends React.Component {
hello() {
console.log("hello")
}
render() {
return <Layout app={this}>
}
}
So later on I can refer to this.props.app.hello (and others) from Layout ?
This is not safe.
React will not know how to watch for changes, so you may miss re-renders. React uses === to check for state changes, and App will always be === to App, even when state or properties change.
Take this example:
class App extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.setState({text: 'default value'});
}
hello() {
this.setState({...this.state, text: 'new value'});
}
render() {
return (
<div onClick={this.hello}>
<Layout app={this}>
</div>
);
}
}
class Layout extends React.Component {
render() {
return <div>{this.app.state.text}</div>
}
}
When you click on the parent div, this.hello will be called, but the child component will not detect the state update, and may not re-render as expected. If it does re-render, it will be because the parent did. Relying on this will cause future bugs.
A safer pattern is to pass only what is needed into props:
class App extends React.Component {
//...
render() {
return (
<div onClick={this.hello}>
<Layout text={this.state.text}>
</div>
);
}
}
class Layout extends React.Component {
render() {
return <div>{this.props.text}</div>
}
}
This will update as expected.
There's nothing wrong in passing functions as props, as I can see in your example, the only thing you have to do is make sure your function is bound to the current component like the following example